Nice to See You Again: Yoshitomo Nara’s Rebellious Heroine
Art © 2021 Yoshitomo Nara
A monumental work that epitomizes the artist's career-long exploration of themes of innocence, adolescence, and universal angst, Yoshitomo Nara’s Nice to See You Again stands as one of the strongest and most striking paintings of the artist’s thirty-year career. Ostensibly innocuous, the rosy-cheeked, wide-eyed, kawaii girl peers toward the viewer with startling intensity; as one notices her chubby fist brandishing a knife however, any assumptions of vulnerability are undermined. Set against a vibrant periwinkle background and rendered with characteristic virtuosity, Nara's archetypal child is concurrently innocent and violent, docile and unruly, illustrating the radical potential of subversive and anarchic youth. One of only six portraits by Nara from the 1990s featuring the iconic little girl with knife, a limited group which also includes Knife Behind Back, the current auction record for the artist, Nice to See You Again is a masterpiece that epitomizes the very best of Nara’s oeuvre, at a moment where institutional recognition of his work is at an all-t.mes high. The past year has seen 3 major exhibitions of Nara’s work, with shows at the Dallas Contemporary and Kuandu Museum of Replica Handbags s in Taipei, as well as the artist’s first international retrospective which took place at LACMA to great acclaim.
Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY
Art ©️ 1996 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Executed in 1996, the present work sees Nara depart from the thick, Neo-Expressionistic outlines of his early work to his most recognizable and mature aesthetic, with his subject delicately rendered and set against a monochromatic background. Wisps of baby hairs frame the protagonist's face and hairline, the yellow of her beret producing a halo-like effect against the periwinkle background, a cherub deviously defiant of any presumed innocence. Diminutive even in its holder’s tiny fist, the knife appears useless; Nara describes, "Look at them, (the weapons) are so small, like toys. Do you think they could fight with those? I don't think so, rather, I kind of see the children among other bigger, bad people all around them, who are holding bigger knives." (Yoshitomo Nara, quoted in: Kara Besher, "Yoshitomo Nara," Assembly Language. September 2005 (online)) Determinedly thrusting the knife at the viewer, Nara's heroine stands as a symbol of infantilized innocence raging against an oppressive and more powerful world, undermining and subverting notions of childhood naivety.
Yoshitomo Nara: Market Precedent
During this period, Nara's monochromatic backgrounds became reductive and highly distinctive, his brushstrokes increasingly painterly and rendered with a softer palette and gentle depth. Through masterful layering and chromatic hues, the composition of the present work conveys an ambiguous vacuity when juxtaposed against the solitary figure, an allegory for the self, situated within a vast, indifferent, and alienating world. This spirit of isolation and rebellion is echoed in Nara’s own life. As Kristin Chambers notes: "Nara works alone in his studio, usually late at night, with punk rock screaming from speakers. He chain-smokes as he concentrates on channeling all of his past ghosts and present emotions into the deceptively simple face of his current subject." (Kristin Chambers. "A Visit to Naraland,” in: Exh. Cat., Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Nothing Ever Happens, 2004. p.26) If upon initial glance the reduced composition suggests the narrative is uncomplicated, this effect soon wears off; Nara's formally void backgrounds and universally recognizable figures reveal an infinite space for self-reflection, and for the viewer to their own inner child and associated angst. Combining the traditions of Japanese theatrical masks and Ukiyo-e prints, the graphic style of Manga, the alluring archetypes of Pop, and the rebellious spirit of punk rock, Nice to See You Again embodies the deeply personal and intuitive amalgamation of art historical tendencies characteristic of Nara's unique artistic vernacular.
As Nara describes, "these works were born not from confronting the other, but from confronting [his] own self." (Yoshitomo Nara quoted in: Exh. Cat., Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, Yoshitomo Nara, 2020 (online)) Like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, Nara is subverting the meaning of a familiar image, creating a dichotomy between visual expectation and reality.
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Art © 2021 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Right: Roy Lichtenstein, Oh, Jeff...I Love You, Too...But…, 1964
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Art © 2021 Estate of Roy Lichtenstein
Lichtenstein’s comic strips, depicting tearful, isolated women and soldiers in action, betray something about a society that fetishizes violence and war, and is compelled by visions of heroic men saving helpless women. It was by removing them from their context and presenting them as isolated images that Lichtenstein exposed this tendency, just as Warhol’s paintings of Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy exposed not only a collects ive obsession with celebrity, but more fundamentally, a ghoulish fascination with and fear of death. In his work, Nara’s coopts the kawaii aesthetics of Manga and creates characters that confirm in their aesthetic but rebel in their actions. His little girls are not doing as they ought, and that change exposes the collects ive expectation of how they should behave – that is, in a demure, innocent, childlike, pliable fashion.
“Rather than merely offering the work for the viewers to see face-on, I want to trigger their imaginations. This way, each individual can see my work with his or her own unique, imaginative mind… an experimental place where visitors find an opportunity to see themselves reflected as though my work were a mirror or a window. For people who cannot, or will not, really look, there will be nothing.”
The title Nice to See You Again illuminates the mischievous dichotomies within the composition and figure herself, suggesting revolt or possibly revenge. The vast expanse of periwinkle juxtaposed against the flawless execution of Nara's beguiling and recognizable protagonist reveals his idiosyncratic artistic vernacular grounding the figure in something universally relatable, a collects ive and globalized culture. Nara's heroine meets our eyes with a penetrating gaze, confronting imperceptible adversaries and revealing our rebellious nature within. Tender and transfixing, the present work is a stunning test.mes nt to the unparalleled emotional resonance and unbridled angst that situates Nara as Japan's most internationally acclaimed living painter.